Collusion and Price Wars in the Australian Coal Industry during the Late Nineteenth Century

Bibliographic Data

ID8419552
AuthorsGrant Fleming (0000-0001-6652-5588, Australian National University, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume42
Issue3
Pages47-70
Publication date2000-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueBusiness History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-6791 • E-ISSN: 1743-7938
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00076790000000266
OpenAlexW2088182513
LanguageEN
Citations received7

This essay examines the behaviour of coal mining companies in late nineteenth-century Australia in light of recent research on strategic firm behaviour. The Northern Collieries vend explored a number of institutional arrangements designed to increase the amount of public information and raise the costs of cheating. Output apportioning and profit redistribution schemes were employed to increase the costs to any individual firm of over-production. Wage contracts between the coal mining union and collieries included a sliding-scale component linked to the cartel price; the union was an important monitoring agent increasing the amount of public information on firm behaviour. Periodic price wars involved chiselling on the cartel price and bargaining behaviour to influence future agreements

Cartel · Cheating · Coal · Collusion · Competitor analysis · Economics · Industrial organization · Market economy · Microeconomics · Political science · Profit (economics · Redistribution (election · Wage · Australian History and Society · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Mining and Resource Management

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